1. rightness (n) a: accordance with conscience or morality b: appropriate conduct; doing the right thing c: conformity to fact or truth 2. truth (n) a: the state of being the case b: the body of real things, events, and facts

Sunday, February 04, 2007

UFO'S OVER IRAN, BUYUKANIT IN DC, AND BIG, BAD PJAK

“People are bringing shotguns to UFO sightings in Fife, Alabama. I asked a guy, "Why do you bring a gun to a UFO sighting?" Guy said, "Way-ul, we didn' wanna be ab-duc-ted." If I lived in Fife, Alabama, I would be on my hands and knees every night praying for abduction.”~ Bill Hicks.

Iran has had a rash of recent UFO sightings stretching back to mid-January, as first reported by Fars News Agency:

A radiant unidentified flying object was observed in the sky of Central Sepidar in the vicinity of Bouyer Ahmad in western Iran at 19:00 hours local time (15:30 GMT) Monday [16 January].

Witnesses told FNA that the object has been observed for one complete hour while moving southwards.

In a similar incident last Wednesday, an Unidentified Flying Object crashed in Barrez Mounts in the central province of Kerman.

Deputy Governor General of Kerman province Abulghassem Nasrollahi told FNA that the crash, which was followed by an explosion and a thick spiral of smoke, has caused no casualties or damage to properties.

He further denied earlier reports that the explosion has been the result of a plane or chopper crash, reminding that all the passing aircrafts have been reported as sound and safe.

The official further stated that investigations were underway by police and other relevant authorities in this regard.

While other reports spoke of meteors, Nasrollahi said there were no conclusive witnesses in that regard, yet he did not dismiss the possibility that the crash has been caused by a meteor.

Eye-witnesses assured that the explosion has been caused as a result of the crash of a radiant unidentified flying object onto the ground.

Meantime, an informed source told FNA that the object has been on fire and there has been thick smoke coming out of it prior to the crash, concluding that the object couldn't have been a meteor as meteors do not smoke.

The source also said that the crash has been witnessed by people in several cities, and mentioned that the rendezvous point was located 100 kilometers from the provincial capital city of Kerman.

He said that people in the city of Rafsanjan also reported to have witnessed a similar incident several days ago.

Similar crash incidents have been witnessed frequently during the last year all across Iran, and officials believe that the objects could be spy planes or a hi-tech espionage device.

A second incident was reported two days later, on the 18th. Today, a more detailed discussion of the Iranian UFO phenomenon appeared in American Chronicle:

It is reasonable to consider that some sightings of unusual objects in the skies above Iran could be part of U.S. operations.

Back in February 2005, Washington Post writer Dafna Linzer reported that, “The Bush administration has been flying surveillance drones over Iran for nearly a year to seek evidence of nuclear weapons programs and detect weaknesses in air defenses, according to three U.S. officials with detailed knowledge of the secret effort.”

[ . . . ]

Linzer also reported that, “U.S. officials confirmed that the drones were deployed along Iran's northern and western borders, first in April 2004, and again in December and January.”

[ . . . ]

So, there seems to be tentative identification of one possible explanation for some objects in the skies above Iran. But is that the complete explanation? U.S. surveillance and psychological operation (PSYOP) intimidation?

Linzer’s reporting seems to verify that some of the objects seen by Iranian citizens could be U.S. surveillance drones, efforts at PSYOP or some other U.S. effort.

[ . . . ]

One thing that U.S. surveillance drones and alleged extraterrestrial visitors have in common is an interest in nuclear sites and weapons, not only in Iran, but worldwide.

Many very unusual and frightening UFO incidents have occurred over the U.S. near nuclear weapons sites and nuclear facilities. Other nations have reported similar activity.

Drones or visitors from Mars? I know where I'd tend to place my money. . .

Speaking of Iran, there was an article about PJAK in the Guardian on Friday. After an intro, we get to the meat of the matter:

The AP recently spent two winter days at a PEJAK training camp tucked in the shadow of the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq, listening to its followers describe their goals and operations in Iran.

According to a camp commander, Hussein Afsheen, "PKK gives ideological and logistical support'' while funding comes from Iranian Kurds. He said he didn't know of U.S. funding, but would gladly accept it.

The camp is designed to toughen up the new recruits, who numbered 38 during the AP's visit. Beds are single wool blankets spread over a rough concrete floor, or over a narrow steel bench that hugs an icy mud wall. The only heat comes from a wood-fired potbelly stove.

It's still pitch dark and freezing at 5 a.m., when the fighters line up and pledge allegiance to the Kurdish cause.

Soztar Afreen, a 22-year-old Syrian with a quick smile, says she joined five years ago and the first months were tough.

"I had trouble keeping up. You have to toughen yourself. The physical work is difficult but once you get used to it life here gets easier,'' she said.

She recalled that her parents, PKK sympathizers, sent her off with this plea: "Don't let down the struggle; make us proud.''

Gunfire and explosions echo off mountainsides as recruits learn to fire artillery and rocket launchers and automatic rifles. They are taught to lay ambushes and to endure long hours isolated and in hiding.

Food is spartan - potatoes, tomato broth, onions and a lot of bread baked flat in a deep stone oven.

Much time is spent in ideological training and studying Ocalan's vision of a united Kurdistan, which the guerrillas say has gradually shifted from demanding full-blown independence to settling for autonomy as a distinct culture within the various countries where they live.

PEJAK ideology is rigorously leftist and includes equality of the sexes - unusual in this region. The camp has two leaders, a man and a woman.

The male one, Afsheen, is a Turkish Kurd who joined the PKK in 1990, at age 19. He said he enlisted after Turkish soldiers herded him, his family and his neighbors into the town square and burned down their homes.

Four shepherds were coming home and "The soldiers just opened fire on them. I had inside of me a lot of anger. I promised I would get my revenge,'' said Afsheen.

In training, "Recruits were put in a cave and left there for a month, allowed out only for half an hour each day. We walked for hours in frigid water,'' he said.

Afsheen said he has made several forays into Iran, including one monthlong trek to the Iranian town of Shahha three months ago, not to attack Iranians but to organize Kurds. "We were discovered. There was a firefight and it went on until dark. We were pinned down, trapped,'' he said.

"At nightfall we found an opening and we tried to slip out but we were discovered. The firing went on again and they called in their helicopters. One of our friends was wounded and three Iranian security men were killed.''

Afsheen's co-leader is Beridon Dersim, who grew up in Austria and found her identity with the PKK.

"What I wanted I couldn't find from Turkey. I couldn't find from Europe. The PKK offered me answers about myself, about my ethnicity.''

Dersim, 32, said she wanted to pick up a gun the day she joined the PKK at 17 but it was just before her 20th birthday that she was allowed into the guerrilla ranks.

Unlike Afreen of Syria, she did not have her family's blessing, she says, and her father, a Turkish civil servant, was tortured and left in a wheelchair. She said she has since fought in gunbattles.

The guerrillas vow not to marry or visit their families lest they put them in danger or be distracted from their struggle. Afsheen said he hasn't seen his parents since their village was destroyed 16 years ago. "I was the youngest of nine children, but maybe there are more now. I don't know.''

Dersim says her presence encourages Kurdish women but also frightens the men.

"We go to a village and when we speak they are surprised and they ask us: 'Where do you get such power to do this? How can you speak like this and in front of men?'''

Keep speaking truth to power, hevals. Did anyone notice that the Kurds in that one article come from all over Kurdistan as well as from Diaspora? And we know that there are many who were born as non-Kurds who are now in the mountains fighting for the Kurdish people. This is a fact throughout PKK and always has been.

Also this last week saw reports indicating that ExxonMobil finished last year's earnings race with profits that beat all previous records for any US company. Friday saw the release of the UN report on global warming. What you may not have heard is that neocon temple, AEI, funded in part by ExxonMobil, offered scientists and economists $10,000 to contest the UN report. The best article that touches on all these points comes from the World Socialist Web Site:

The Guardian newspaper in Britain, meanwhile, carried a report Friday detailing an attempt by an ExxonMobil-funded think tank, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), to bribe scientists and economists into attacking the new report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirming global warming and its source in human activity. AEI, whose vice-chairman is former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, offered to pay $10,000 for papers casting doubt on the IPCC document.

More here and here. Lame attempt by an AEI "thinker" to dodge the issue here. Remember, AEI is one of those neocon organizations that have never heard of Turkish atrocities against Kurds.

Buyukanit and Gul will be in Washington this week to cry about the big, bad PKK and Kerkuk. They may have some explaining to do about Hrant Dink's murder as well. Canada's National Post has an interesting opinon piece on the Deep State's control of Turkey. The last paragraph sums things up nicely:

The Dink assassination was only the latest in a long series of appalling events that have disclosed a troubled, confused, and insecure nation. Turkey has no record of political stability in recent decades. Since the middle of the 20th century, government has been changed four times by military coup. Once the centre of great power, Turkey may never have entirely recovered from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s. History has left Turks with incoherent national memories of pride and shame. Their long, painful rise toward modernity demonstrates why a peaceful and prosperous future requires a reasonably honest understanding of the past.

That analysis is punctuated by the recent release of photo and video showing Turkish police and jandarma posing proudly with Dink's murderer, Ogun Samast--Thanks to Heval GT for the head's up on that. Check the link he left for the BBC on that, as well as the report by IHT. Naturally, this was all a plot to blacken the noble character of TSK. The press has been duly warned.

Finally, to brush up on some of the subjects Buyukanit and his secretary, Abdullah Gul, will be talking about in DC, check out why Turkey could become the new threat in Iraq. Don't pay much attention to Neçirvan Barzanî's brush off of Turkish threats--that's just political talk. After all, what was the excuse used by Turkey to invade Cyprus? How is that an example of Turkey's respect for "territorial integrity"? And Cyprus didn't have a drop of oil or a single apocu.